


The Adventure Of The Slipshod Woman (1886)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [48]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Impersonation, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, References to Suicide, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes, cold cases
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Cat hair and chance combine to make someone start asking questions about an old murder – but who? And to what end?





	The Adventure Of The Slipshod Woman (1886)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CasGetYourShotgun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasGetYourShotgun/gifts).



> Also mentioned elsewhere as one of the cases in which Sherlock helped out Inspector Macdonald.

Typically, the short crossing from Larne to Portpatrick was totally calm, and I stepped off the boat feeling refreshed and cheerful. It was a morning sailing, which meant that we would have the day to take a Glasgow & South Western Railway train across south-western Scotland, an area of the country I had often read about but had never visited, and spend a few hours in Carlisle before catching the night sleeper back to London.

I have to say that Galloway – the counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire in south-west Scotland – entranced me with its quiet beauty. Indeed, I felt sorry for all those Victorian families who followed their Queen to the barren and much colder Highlands, when this beauteous landscape was so much nearer. I thought that I might come back here one day, then never knowing the anguish that would pass between now and my sole return visit, some eighteen years into the future. Nor that that visit would occur in the final year of Sherlock's long and illustrious career, because soon after, he......

No. Not yet.

+~+~+

Of all the sights I might have expected to see on the platforms at Citadel Station, the polished dome of a bald, dark-skinned cake-loving London sergeant was most definitely not on the list.

“Henriksen?” I said to Sherlock gesturing across to where the down train had just arrived. Judging from the way he was bustling towards the footbridge, he had not seen us yet. Sherlock frowned.

“I once told Bacchus that he could use his sources to find me for our friend, and a few select other people”, he said, leading the way to the footbridge to intercept our friend. "Of course, I added that if he abused that information, then Mother might 'accidentally' be informed what really happened with Monsieur Lagare's daughter."

“Oh.”

“I included your good self on that list, of course.”

I reddened with pleasure. Fortunately the sergeant spotted us at that precise moment – thank the Lord! - and we waited for him on our platform.

+~+~+

I had an unpleasant feeling that our wonderful first-class sleeper compartments, which I had so looked forward to, were not to be experienced just yet.

“I am right sorry to be tracking you gentlemen down like this”, Henriksen said, as we sat down in a small waiting-room. “But this is sort of urgent.”

“Sort of urgent?” I asked. He blushed.

“I might be asking Mr. Holmes a favour as regards The Donald.”

I stared at him incredulously. Mr. Fraser Macdonald was, as I have mentioned before, his superior, the inspector at his local station and a singularly unpleasant human being, in my opinion. His only redeeming feature, I had long thought, was that unlike some less developed species of humanity, he would not hold our friend's skin colour against his career development, although I felt that that was only because the Scotsman hated all those around him pretty much equally. He seemed to regard the rest of the human race (always assuming that he was a member!) as a plague to make his own life more difficult. That Henriksen might come all this way to.... wait a minute.

“Why have you come all this way?” I asked curiously. “You could just as easily have come round to Baker Street tomorrow?”

(He would have done anyway. Tomorrow was Mrs. Harvelle's coffee-cake day. And before any readers say how cynical it is of me to even suggest such a thing, he had not missed any of her last three baking days!)

“The Donald came to us from these parts”, he explained, “from the Cumberland & Westmorland Constabulary. He was a small-town copper in a little place by the sea, Allonby. It is so out of the way, it does not even have a railway station; the nearest stop is Aspatria, six miles away.”

“Then how did he end up in London?” Sherlock asked (I myself had been wondering that unfortunate circumstance had brought that about).

“His father was a Cockney, his mother a Cumberlander”, Henriksen explained. “They spit up – happens nowadays, I suppose – and he was only young at the time, so he went to live with her, and entered the local constabulary up here. I think his parents died around the same time and his father left him a house somewhere out Hounslow way, which was why he came to the smoke. Warmer, I know that for sure!”

I had noticed how being those few extra degrees further north were making him shiver. But then, he never did like leaving the City, if only because like my friend, he was sure that a major crime wave would break out in his absence. Such an an outbreak of cake thefts?

“You do not like your superior”, Sherlock said, looking askance at me for some reason. “Yet you are asking for us to help him. May we know why?”

Henriksen blushed again.

“Two things”, he said. “The Donald is hard, yes, but he is always fair. He came down hard on Clegg – your remember him sir, the one who later got done for fraud – when he was working alongside me on secondment from another station, and was ribbing me about being 'your lap-dog'. Others would have done nothing.”

I had to turn away to hide a smile. The thought of the burly policeman as anyone's lap-dog was..... interesting. Sherlock shot me another sharp look.

“And the second thing?” my friend asked.

“This case sounds weird”, the policeman said. “I have come across some odd cases in my time, but this.... it is just bizarre!”

+~+~+

“The trouble is”, Henriksen began, “that this was a case The Donald put to bed whilst he was serving up here. And now someone is stirring it up, for no reason that I can see. 'Course you gentlemen know how an organization as big as the police service works; three hundred miles is nothing to gossip, especially with the telegraph and all these days. If it emerged that he had not done everything by the book, then he might get transferred somewhere.”

“And who knows what we might get in his place”, Sherlock agreed.

(I should say at this juncture that, all other things being equal, I both hoped and expected that Henriksen would make inspector himself some day soon. But there were rules about serving set amounts of time in the lower ranks to prove oneself before applying for promotion, and the affable Dutchman still had the best part of two years to go before he might qualify. Hence if someone replaced 'The Donald' now, it would almost certainly mean that our friend would have to move elsewhere. Although I was sure that he would somehow still contrive to call on us come Mrs. Harvelle's baking days!

I watched as he devoured the large slice of cake that Sherlock had brought him – the heathens in the station restaurant did not sell pie, for some reason - and stared forlornly at my insipid tea. The sergeant had his cake, my friend had his coffee, and I had the hump!

“Tell us about the case”, Sherlock prompted.

“It was almost the last case he did as a sergeant in Allonby before he got promoted to our station, eight years back”, Henriksen said. “It seemed straightforward enough at the time. A rich fellow, Mr. Terence Knight, owned a large seafront house in the town. He died – the doctor was a bit suspicious, but nothing could be proven - and against all expectations, left all his money to his cleaner, a Mrs. Ventnor. Nothing improper, I might add, though of course tongues wagged, as they will; Mrs. Ventnor's husband had died some years back. The Donald said that it was lucky she was not that attractive, or things would have been ten times worse! 

Mr. Knight's sole daughter Mrs. Miller – divorced and, according to the locals, no surprise there - had expected to inherit the lot, and he left her precisely one penny! She was suspected of being behind his death and fled to France, but she must have realized that the game was up, and drowned herself off Dover beach. Good riddance, was the general opinion.”

“That seems all in order”, I said. “What happened to the cleaner?”

“Mrs. Ventnor sold the house – probably wise; it made a pretty penny as building land, as well as getting her away from all the gossips – and bought herself a small place in a village called Bowness.”

“I know of that”, I said. “That is where Hadrian's great wall ends.”

“Technically correct”, Sherlock smiled. “That is where the physical wall ends. Although one should not exclude the chain of defensive forts that extend along the cost as far as Maryport.”

I scowled at him. Show-off! The sergeant chuckled at me.

“That pretty much seemed that, until a few weeks ago”, Henriksen said. “Then someone started asking questions around Allonby, about the case. 'Course in a rural area that sort of things draws attention, and one of the boys at the local station telegraphed The Donald about it. I was there when he got it.”

“How did you know what was in the telegram?” Sherlock asked.

“He went a really funny colour”, Henriksen said. “I was worried; you know how red-skinned he is – the ladies in the canteen call him Rufus behind his back - but he went white all over. He told me about the case, and I suggested bringing you in on it.”

Sherlock pressed his long fingers together and thought for a moment.

“What are your plans now, Henriksen?” he asked.

The sergeant looked surprised, but duly answered.

“I thought I'd go to the station here, and see if they have en empty cell for the night”, he said. “A bit irregular, but you know how tight they are on expenses just now; The Donald paid for my train ticket; it's an open return.”

“Well, I see no reason to waste good tickets”, Sherlock said, taking our own tickets out and handing them to our friend. “These are first-class tickets for the night sleeper, which leaves in a few hours.”

Henriksen looked shocked.

“But sir, you can't....”

“We would only waste them”, Sherlock said, “as we are going to look for accommodation – hopefully without cell bars – in the town, and tomorrow we shall head down to Allonby and begin our investigations.”

Henriksen beamed.

+~+~+

“This must surely be one of the coldest trails that you have ever followed”, I said.

It was the following day. We had seen a still disbelieving Henriksen off on the sleeper – I doubt the man had ever travelled first-class in his life before – and found the Station Hotel to be more than adequate to our simple needs. Although any establishment that served both coffee and bacon for breakfast was bound to win over my genius friend!

“We shall begin our inquiries at the station”, he said. “That, presumably, is where the villainess would have decamped after her crime began to unravel, and they may remember her there.”

“After all these years?” I asked incredulously.

“This is a very small and very insular railway company”, he said. “You may be surprised.”

I supposed that that was true, although I still thought that it was a long shot. The Maryport & Carlisle Railway Company was indeed one of the smaller railways in the country, snug in its corner of one county between the industrial ports and collieries of West Cumberland on one side, and Scotland and the Border City on the other. It should also be said that, unlike many railways of the time, it was highly profitable. Acting on my friend's advice, I had purchased shares in it some years back, and they had never failed to yield a most welcome dividend.

Our little train steamed into Aspatria Station right on time, and after the other passengers had departed, Sherlock sought out the stationmaster, a Mr. Percy Maine, and asked if there was anyone here from the time of the case. His long shot turned out to be a good one; both the stationmaster himself and the ticket-vendor were the same as back then, although the latter was off duty just then.

“But he lives in the railway cottages, sir”, the stationmaster said, “just outside the station. Number three, with the blue door. You can find him there.”

(I should once more re-iterate at this point how much my regard for Sherlock increased by the way he treated what were then called 'the lower orders of society'. I had seen too many of our class talk down to people as if they were in some way less than human, especially some of my patients to their servants, and thought that such behaviour said rather more about those giving such treatment than those receiving it. Sherlock could be brusque at times, but that was with anyone, regardless of class, and as I have said before, he had a charm which worked on just about everyone. And no, I was not jealous of that at all!). 

“Do you remember anything from those times?” Sherlock asked. “And on a related issue, have you been asked about them of late?”

I may have imagined it, but a strange look came over the man's face. 

“Someone was asking about it, sir”, he said. “Only the other week. Short gentleman, almost round he was so fat, and quite young. Not a local, by his accent, I'd say; from the West Country or thereabouts. I didn't tell him anything because, well, I didn't quite trust him. But there was something at the time, although I thought nothing of it back then. Only later.”

“Go on”, Sherlock pressed.

“Just a few days before he died, Mr. Knight had a box sent down to London”, he said. “Huge thing; one of those antique Spanish chests. My good lady wife has a small one, all brass, and even that's a devil to keep clean.”

“But you said nothing at the time?” I wondered. The stationmaster blushed.

“Point was, sir, none of us could stand his daughter, Mrs. Miller. She was a right... well, she was no lady, in my humble opinion. Her husband had run off with another woman, and I don't wonder at it. We were so chuffed when good old Mrs. Ventnor got everything, especially with her having lost her husband less than a year before and all. Mrs. M. went to the house – her father's house - but one of the neighbours ratted her up and Sergeant Macdonald as was, he caught her there.”

“So?” I asked.

“All the silver and stuff was gone, sir”, the stationmaster said. “I just thought that, well, that was what had to have been in the chest. He sent it to someone for safe keeping, or for them to inherit. You see, at the time Mrs. Miller challenged the will in court, and we thought she might still get everything, so.... um....”

“You decided 'not to remember', stationmaster”, Sherlock smiled. “Understandable, given the circumstances. We shall adjourn to ask your ticket-vendor if his memory was also, ahem, 'variable'.”

The stationmaster blushed deeply, but a generous coin from Sherlock seemed to remedy that.

+~+~+

Mr. Andrew Farragut was a small, bespectacled man of unprepossessing appearance, who lived with his wife in their small cottage. I have heard the phrase 'not enough room to swing a cat', but his 'main room' really was. I felt that I had to breathe in to avoid taking up too much space! Sherlock explained why we were here, and once again, there was a definite reaction.

“Your stationmaster friend told us that someone had been asking people about this case only recently”, Sherlock said smoothly. “A tall, heavily tanned man with a most distinctive moustache. And a foreign accent, possibly Germanic.”

It was fortunate that, despite the smallness of the room, our host could not see my start. That was not how the stationmaster had described the man at all!

“That's him exactly, sir”, the ticket-vendor said, only adding to my confoundment. “Asking about the case after all these years; it fair put the wind up me.”

“I doubt that you would remember much after all this time”, Sherlock said.

“Well, funny you should say that, sir”, the ticket-vendor said. “His asking – and there was no way I was going to tell some foreigner like that anything, I can tell you! - set me thinking back. And there was something just a bit odd, though it was such a small thing I thought nothing of it at the time.”

“Go on”, Sherlock urged. 

“You see, the Company sells through tickets”, the man said, “and I knows that Mrs. Miller offed herself in Kent. But she only bought a ticket from me as far as London. I wondered.... well, why? Why buy to there when she could buy all the way to Dover?”

“I think that I can see a reason why”, Sherlock smiled, “but I need just a little more help. Is there anyone else in the area – and I suppose we would be looking at would be Allonby rather than here – who might know anything?”

The ticket-vendor smiled shyly.

“I probably shouldn't say this sir”, he said, “but you might ask Mrs. Paterson. She keeps Scarlet Cottage, a few doors down from where it all happened in Allonby; she was the one who informed on Mrs. M. It's directly opposite the bandstand on the sea-front. She's the biggest gossip in the village, if not all of Cumberland!”

“How do you know that?” I asked. The man blushed and his wife giggled.

“She's me bloody sister!” 

I did not laugh. But it was close.

+~+~+

Sherlock had that annoying smile all the way to Allonby, a pleasant carriage ride which took us to what was little more than a village on the Irish Sea. He evidently knew something, but was not telling me. Spoilsport!

We did not go straight to Mrs. Paterson's house but to the little post office, where Sherlock fired off a telegram. He presumably expected a reply in short order, because he suggested lunch at the curiously large hotel set back from the sea-front - did they really have that many people staying in an out of the way place like this? Sure enough, a boy brought the answer whilst we were just finishing a delicious meal. Sherlock tipped him (I thought that both that and those to the railway officials were far too generous, but then that was him all over), and he sat back, looking content.

“The case is nearly complete”, he said. “There will be an arrest quite soon. Although I am inclined towards a small spot of revenge first.”

“Against whom?” I said, all at sea as per usual. “And complete? How?”

“Mrs. Paterson will complete the picture for us”, Sherlock said confidently. I had no idea how he could be so sure about a woman he had never even met, but damn the man, he was probably right. Again.

Oh well, at least there was pie! I decided that I quite liked Allonby.

+~+~+

Mrs. Gwendolen Paterson, predictably, simpered at Sherlock. And ignored me completely. What was I, chopped liver?

“Oh of course I remember the case, dears”, she said, pouring out coffee for us both (I saw Sherlock's eyes light up at that). “Terrible, terrible. And she died.”

I stared in confusion.

“But Mrs. Ventnor got the money”, I objected. “And Mrs. Miller was the one who committed suicide.”

“I have a question”, Sherlock cut in. “Mrs. Ventnor. She had all that money, and purchased a house up in Bowness. Did she, perchance, carry on cleaning?”

That seemed a particularly odd question, but she beamed at him.

“No”, she said. “I know someone who lives in Drumburgh, not far from her, and he knows someone in her village.”

This was getting odder and odder, I thought.

“I believe that there is a saying”, Sherlock smiled. “Justice may be delayed, but it is never denied.”

“That may or may not be true”, she said. “Tell me Mr. Holmes – do you follow justice, or the law?”

“Always justice”, he said. 

“Then let judgement run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

The Book of Amos, I thought. But justice for whom?

+~+~+

“Who was the telegram from?” I asked, as we journeyed back to Aspatria. The coffee and bacon combination at the hotel in Carlisle had, as I had expected, proven irresistible to my friend, and he was in a very good mood.

“Henriksen”, he said. “I wanted to ask him a question, although I suspected that I already knew the answer.”

I just glared at him. He chuckled.

“I wanted to know if Inspector Macdonald was at work this week”, he said.

“And?” I pressed.

“He is on two weeks' leave to attend to the funeral of a close family member down in Cornwall.”

One of these days, I thought as we returned to the Border City, I was going to be smarter than him, damnation. And pigs might fly!

+~+~+

Rather oddly, three days passed without Sherlock seeming to make any efforts to pursue the case any further. I know that he sent off and received more telegrams, but bearing in mind our last port of call was not much more than a dozen or so miles west of the city, his lack of action seemed odd. Although I did not complain as it gave me time to explore the city and its Roman remains, and we even had a short excursion to the east to see one part of the great wall that had survived more or less intact. 

On the fourth day we left the station for a second time. And in a somewhat unusual manner!

Probably unique amongst railways of this time, the Port Carlisle Railway still used horse-drawn carriages, so our speed itself was... well, it was not. Worse, however, were the frankly bizarre seating arrangements, which seemed to have somehow jumped across from the stagecoach era. Our first-class compartment was in the front half of a tiny four-wheel coach, and accessed through a central door. Second-class was in the back and, incredibly, third-class was simply two short benches along the running-boards! I suppose the only blessing of the snail's pace speed was that if anyone did fall off, they would probably survive with only minor injuries!

“We could always come back via third-class?” Sherlock suggested slyly. “Think of all that fresh Cumberland air!”

I gave him such a look!

Fortunately we made it to Port Carlisle, the terminus, without mishap, although I dreaded the journey back. Bowness, where the rich Mrs. Ventnor lived, was only a mile further on, and we were met on the station platform by a tall blond man in his fifties. Definitely someone in service by his appearance, although what he was doing here, only the Good Lord (and Sherlock) knew.

“Mr. Holmes”, he said, looking almost as windblown as my friend.

“Mr. Beckton”, Sherlock said, bowing. 

I had no idea who this person was, of course. I did not pout at that fact.

“The late Mr. Knight's former butler”, Sherlock explained, as if that made it all obvious (it did not).

The three of us took a carriage the short distance on to Bowness, which was a small village that sat at the end of the great wall (yes it did!). Again, rather oddly, we drove to the local police station, and after a short stop inside, Sherlock emerged with three constables (rather a lot for a small village, I thought). We then drove in two cabs to “Plush Cottage”, a small but well-maintained house on the coast, set a little apart from the rest of the houses. Sherlock strode up to the door and knocked loudly. It was opened by an attractive young woman, who looked at him in confusion. I was surprised that she was not already simpering at him!

What also surprised me was what did happen next. She stepped back and tried to slam the door on Sherlock, but he forced his way in, followed by the constables. Moments later they were dragging her out of the house and down the path towards us. Mr. Beckton gasped.

“Mrs. Miller?”

She looked at him in shock.

“Oh bloody 'ell!”

+~+~+

It was some little time later, and we were sat in the police station at Bowness. I had seen a carriage drawn up outside as we had all come in, the lady still very reluctantly, and had hoped that it and not that death-trap of a railway would be our means of getting back to Carlisle. 

“This has been a most interesting case”, Sherlock told Constable Maxwell. “I would be delighted to tell you all about it. But before I do, may I suggest that you invite the gentleman currently listening in on our conversation from the back room to step through and join us?”

I thought for a moment that the constable was going to deny my friend, but fortunately there was no need. The door to the back room opened, and a tall figure stepped through. 

My mouth fell open. It was Inspector Fraser Macdonald.

“I can see how you have risen to the dizzy heights of inspector, Mr. Macdonald”, Sherlock smiled. “You played this scene most prettily, although I was suspicious from the start.”

“About what?” I demanded. Sherlock turned to me.

“Some little time back, the inspector here receives some new evidence, appurtenant to a case from his time in Cumberland that he had long thought solved”, he began. “Policeman are very parochial, and even those who move to the other end of the country maintain a loyalty to their home areas, and a desire to see justice done. And in this case justice had indeed been seen to be done.”

He paused.

“Except”, he said, “that it had not been done at all. A crime – two crimes – had been committed, and very efficiently covered up. Inspector, I know nearly all, but I would ask one thing. What was the evidence that made you re-open this inquiry?”

“Mrs. Ventnor's clothes, sir”, he said. “She ordered a whole lot from an expensive place in Carlisle, and it was her bad luck that the salesman had moved to the place from Allonby. People change over the years, of course, but what made him suspicious was the cat.”

I was all at sea.

“She took a cat shopping?” I asked, confused. The inspector shook his head.

“Cat hair, sir”, he said. “The salesman checked the old newspapers in the town library, and found that his memory had been right. Mrs. Ventnor had said back them that she was allergic to cats, but the clothes that his customer was wearing had cat hair on them, and a lot of it.”

The woman was guilty because she had acquired a pet? Any further out to sea and I would be back in Ireland!

“Most slipshod of her”, Cas said reprovingly. “What was important as far as the doctor and I are concerned is the old and, I think, rather unjustifiable practice in the modern police force that debars officers from personally going back over old cases. You, inspector, had to work a way round that to preserve your own position and yet bring justice, and you used myself and the doctor to effect that.”

The tall policeman had the grace to blush.

“You planned it very well. You still had many contacts in the area – the stationmaster, the ticket-vendor, the latter's gossiping sister – and you made sure that they were briefed to be as helpful as possible. Unfortunately, they were not well-briefed enough. The stationmaster gave us a description of the person suddenly looking into this case – who of course, never existed – and, suspecting something, I then gave a starkly different description to the ticket-vendor, who said that I had described the man perfectly. One or both had to be lying, never mind the fact that even in this part of the country, people's memories are rarely that good.”

The inspector smiled at that.

“You were, of course, not in Cornwall attending to the affairs of a recently passed relative. I knew that you were somewhere in the vicinity, and wanted you to be 'in at the end', so to speak. I delayed obtaining the services of Mr. Beckton, and made sure that the hotel receptionist knew that I planned to visit Bowness today. At least it enabled the good doctor to fit in some sight-seeing of those old ruins, to which he is so partial.”

It was my turn to blush.

“Sure enough, this morning the hotel clerk confirmed that a man matching your description had asked after me, saying that he was a lawyer, and had been told that I was 'away to Bowness today'. We then decamped here, and the lady on her way to Carlisle will soon be undertaking a less pleasant journey to somewhere rather warmer, courtesy of the long drop.”

“I still do not know what happened, though!” I objected (contrary to what someone later claimed, it was not a whine!). Sherlock turned to me.

“It all comes down to the original crime”, he said. “Double murder.”

“Double?” I asked. He nodded.

“Mrs. Miller finds out about the will of her father”, he said. “She might challenge it in court, but that is expensive and risky. No, she finds a much better way of obtaining what she believes is rightfully hers. Knowing that Mrs. Ventnor is off work for a week, she visits her house and murders her in cold blood.”

I stared at him in shock.

“She has already purloined a Spanish chest from her father's house, and she has that sent away 'on her father's orders'”, Sherlock said. “She then kills her own father, and takes all the silver and plate. This is necessary because, of course, people will wonder what was in the chest; in fact the treasures were most likely sent away to be sold somewhere distant. Instead, the chest contains the body of her first victim.”

“She meets up with the chest again in London, and takes it down to Dover. The body is thrown into the sea; she doubtless checks the tide tables to make sure that it will be washed ashore again soon after. That was the point of a drowning at sea; it would disguise the fact that the body had been dead for some days. A few identifying pieces of jewellery and some smudged papers, and as she had planned, Kent Police duly identify the victim as Mrs. Miller. Naturally the new Mrs. Ventnor cannot return to Allonby, so moves some distance up the coast to another place with no railway connection. She is prepared to keep her changed appearance because, as I have said before, people do change over the years. 

“Unfortunately, justice may be delayed but seldom denied. Her trip to Carlisle arouses the suspicions of the man who serves her, and word soon reaches the sergeant who had investigated and 'solved' the case originally.”

“I fixed for one of her old neighbours to call on her, just to check”, the inspector said in his broad Scots accent. “He got shown to the house all right, but the woman who he had been told was 'Mrs. Ventnor' was the old man's daughter all right. He reported back to Maxwell here, who started out under me at Allonby. Sorry, Mr. Holmes sir, but the force would have come down on me like a ton of bricks if I'd have had any involvement in an old case.”

“And justice was done in the end”, Sherlock smiled. “A most interesting case, gentlemen.”

+~+~+

Next time, a spicy adventure in Hell House, and another case where justice eventually catches up with people who had thought to evade its long reach.

**Author's Note:**

> Allonby and the Ship Hotel are both real and, despite being well off just about any beaten track, are a wonderful addition to any Lake District holiday. I've stayed there, and enjoyed it a lot.


End file.
